ShareKUWAIT: According to the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI), the Kuwaiti population structure is mainly youth (as on June 30th 2022). The percentage of those aged 24 years and under constitutes about 51.8%, and the rest, or 25 years and older, form 48.2%. The youth bloc is about 779,000 citizens, and the second bloc is 723,000, including 140,000 retirees and 473,000 citizens whose vast majority is in the labor market.
According to the Central Statistical Bureau, the public sector employs 83.5% of the national labor (June 30th 2022) and indirectly provides financial support to the national workers in the private sector. Employees in the public sector score about 366,000 citizens, and about 72,000 citizen workers are in the private sector, down from 73,000 workers in June 2021. This youth bloc, or those 24 years old and under, equals 1.6 times the number of those in the labor market or unemployed after excluding the retirees.
Suppose Kuwait keeps its unsustainable financial policies unchanged without calculating inflation impact on wages and prices of goods and services - in that case, it will need to double expenditures in the current fiscal year at KD 23.1 billion over the next 20 years to meet the necessary needs of the youth bloc if we calculate the inflation impact and the rise in producing an oil barrel costs coupled with the aging of the reservoirs, which doubled the cost of production now five times the charge in 2000.
And if we calculate a significant and potential weakness of the oil market, its prices will decrease. Its production will also decrease due to its being exposed, right or wrong, to a political and other environmental war. We know that the separation between the capacity of public finance and the stability of the labor balance is inevitable and near. A widening gap in the labor balance -that is, blatant accumulating unemployment- is the reason for most countries' losing their stability.
Financial sustainability has three enemies. The first is corruption, which has turned into a pandemic during the past decade. The second is waste in public expenditures and what the Audit Bureau gratefully provides is an appreciated and respectable effort. The third is populist projects, which adults accept because they involve exchange for leniency with corruption and waste.
The victims in their work, housing, necessities, and education form about 51.8% of the citizens that are 779,000. Suppose the goal is the state's permanence and stability and ensuring the employment and future of the majority of its citizens. In that case, the remedy is a fierce war against corruption and drying up the sources of waste. Both require a government's will and determination in addition to strict resistance to populist projects, even if a constitutional confrontation occurs to stop them.
What is at stake is the protection of the young population which is more in number and trust. It is also a protection for the current workers and retirees who believe they are safe. There is no guarantee for the payment of workers' wages or for meeting their benefits in the event of retirement with a considerable deficit of their funds. If oil conditions worsen, the harmful repercussions will not hurt a single citizen. No matter how immediate gains, such as a long term in office, or an unsustainable temporary increase in income, they are not worth the formidable cost. - Al-Shall Report
